Language and Emotions Dynamics in a Multilingual Context: Evidence from EFL Learners of Djillali Liabes University
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Date
2026
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Abstract
The present investigation seeks to analyze the interplay between language and emotions among EFL students at Djillali Liabes University of Sidi Bel Abbes. This research is threefold aiming to investigate how language can serve as an emotion’s regulation tool; explore the awareness of one’s inner emotions and analyze how multilingual students navigate their emotional expressions end experience through different languages. To check out the validity of the set hypotheses, a mixed-method approach has been adopted. The inquiry has collected and analyzed qualitative data gathered through three different semi-structured interviews directed to six EFL students, five English language chers and nine psy-chologists, in addition to the quantitative data obtained through EFL student’s questionnaire answered by seventy-nine participants from the English department of Sidi Bel Abbes Uni-versity. The results reveal that emotions are deeply connected to language as the latter is often used as tool for controlling and regulating them mainly through performing self-talk. In fact, native language carries more emotional weight, while foreign languages offer a mental buf-fer, making it easier to deal with those emotions. It is worth noting that learning new emo-tional terms in different languages can completely shift the way a person perceives and navi-gates their emotions, giving them new perspectives to understand them. Multilingual EFL students often shift between languages depending on which emotions they are experiencing and the level of their intensity. Finally, being multilingual does not just affect the way we communicate, it also affects how we feel, how we control our emotions and shapes our emotional experience as well.
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